The following talking points are for use in conjunction with the call to action issued March 30, 2011. As always, please adapt and expand as needed to suit your unique voice.

April 7th, 2011 will mark the third anniversary of the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) highly successful Public Access Policy.

It’s the first U.S. policy to ensure that members of the public – including students [and other groups you believe benefit from access] – have guaranteed, free, online access to articles reporting on the results of research that their tax dollars support.

PMC has made available more than two million full-text articles, which are accessed by nearly half a million users every day from all sectors of the public.

On behalf of [describe your organization], we ask that you consider immediately expanding the NIH Public Access Policy to all other departments and agencies with extramural research budgets of $100 million or more.

Doing so will greatly benefit American students of all disciplines who rely on access to government-funded research for a complete and up-to-date education.

[Explain why public access is important to your organization and how you have benefited from the success of the NIH policy]

Because of the high price of many subscriptions, students are often forced to make do with only the journals their institution can afford rather than what they need. Furthermore, educators cannot teach what they cannot read, meaning inaccessible articles don’t find their way into the classes in which they should be taught.

In this time of across the board belt-tightening, we’re asking our educational institutions to do more with less, and expanding the NIH policy to other federal science agencies is crucial to ensure the results of research are available to benefit all students, not just those at the wealthiest institutions.

As the United States continues its shift toward a knowledge-based economy, making publicly funded research available to all students is a direct investment in America’s future. Expanding students’ access to cutting-edge research will help them to enter the workforce running, rather than having to play catch-up in learning the current state of their field.

[Thanks and invitation to discuss further]

CONTACT INFORMATION:

John Holdren
Assistant to the President for Science and Technology
Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President

The Right to Research Coalition has partnered with the Alliance for Taxpayer Access to host our legislative action center. Links on this page will take you to our template letters within the ATA's action center.